It takes balls to call someone out, but the only people to have spoken up about Gregg Wallace – save for Rod Stewart and now Stephen Fry– so far have been women.
Specifically (altogether now) “middle class women of a certain age.” That comment, which Wallace eventually apologised for, was unarguably disastrous, but it also ensured the discourse remained in predictably familiar territory. As in, about the women. Why didn’t they mention it at the time then? Why is it only celebrities? And so on.
There’s a risk that we get caught up in all that that and fail to notice a glaring omission here. Other than Stewart – who took to social media last week to shun the “tubby, bald-headed, ill-mannered bully” for “humiliating” his wife, Penny Lancaster – where are all the men condemning Wallace’s alleged behaviour?
To date it has fallen almost exclusively to women to recount their experiences and lodge complaints, as though only they were capable of noticing what was happening, because it was so subtle and discreet. Details of the allegations – which Wallace denies – sound anything but.
So what about the male contestants, crew, and production staff standing on set? Cat got every single one of their tongues?
Obviously for many of them there was a hefty power imbalance – Wallace was one of the stars of the show, and his demeanour presumably played a huge part in setting the tone for the working environment. But when that environment becomes what famous champion of women Donald Trump would describe as locker room-esque, there is surely some responsibility for everyone pretending to laugh along while feeling secretly uncomfortable to... well, man up, for want of a better phrase.
Casual misogyny is easily dismissed – “just words” according to Trump – but to do so can be dangerous. If that kind of supposed humour becomes the norm, the line in the sand for what is acceptable gets increasingly blurred. The end result? Criminal offences conveniently written off as banter.
Someone we are yet to hear from since this story broke is perhaps the only man on level Masterchef pegging with Wallace, his co-host John Torode. Much was made of Torode’s comment in a 2017 interview that, “It’s funny, we’ve never been friends. We’ve not been to each other’s houses...” however it’s since come to light that he was best man at Wallace’s wedding the year before. Mind you, it was his fourth marriage, so maybe everyone else he knew had already had a turn.
Celebrity MasterChefcontestant Aggie McKenzie told Times Radio that Torode behaves “very differently” to Wallace.
“I observed that when the cameras were off, they would go to separate ends of the room. They didn’t really communicate or have a connection off screen,” she explained.
Whatever the truth of their relationship, it isn’t John’s responsibility to police his colleague, of course. But I can’t help but question his silence.
For a woman to vocalise how intolerable the kind of “gags” Wallace is claimed to have made takes courage – and then some. Even if she’s believed, she stands a good chance of being labelled uptight, oversensitive, a troublemaker. And, let’s be honest here, the sort of man who indulges in these kinds of lolz isn’t exactly brimming with respect for women, so would probably roll his eyes at the silly girl making a fuss over nothing. Being pulled up by peers, the lads, one of the boys would surely – albeit depressingly – have far more impact.
It’s why London mayor Sadiq Khan launched his Say Maaate To A Mate campaign last year, which put the onus on blokes to speak up when their friends were out of line. It came after a study showed that two in three men had wanted to step in before but hadn’t known what to say, which had been a barrier to them taking action.
Casual sexism is like Japanese knotweed. If everyone who sees it pretends not to notice, or to consider it a problem, it will spread rapidly and take root. Maybe it’s difficult to comprehend that men can be inflicting real harm simply by doing nothing. But if more of them called each other out, perhaps there would be fewer situations where it’s almost universally acknowledged after the fact there was a long term problem no-one addressed, meaning the number of people negatively affected has been able to multiply.
It shouldn’t be on Penny Lancaster, Melanie Sykes, Kirstie Allsopp, Kirsty Wark, Aasmah Mir and others to raise behaviours they find uncomfortable or distressing. Men, it’s time to stand up and be counted. No more Mr Mute Guys. And not because you’re the father of a daughter, or on behalf of your wife, or sister, if that’s applicable to you. Just as a human being in the world, who cares enough to do what is so very clearly the right thing.
